Wind energy in Egypt: Economic feasibility for Cairo

Motivated by the rise of the electricity tariffs applied on industrial customer and the frequent electricity cut offs recently experienced in Egypt, this paper assesses the economic feasibility of installing a stand alone wind energy technology by an industrial customer who seeks to reduce his dependency on the national grid. For this purpose, the wind energy potential at the wind regime of Cairo was chosen to be assessed using half an hour wind speed data for a full one-year period (2009). The Weibull parameters of the wind speed distribution function were estimated by employing the maximum likelihood approach. The estimation revealed that Cairo has poor wind resources. Despite the poor resources, the financial analysis has shown that under certain parameters the wind project can prove to be financially viable. Thus harnessing wind energy through stand alone systems can help in meeting the industries electric power needs.